I have been over to Nottingham today to commence a two day re-cover of two full size snooker tables.

They got their last penny’s worth out of the old cloth on this table, just look at the wear in the photos below.

The table now has a nice new re-cover in 6811 tournament Strachan cloth, with 6 new nets, the old ones having been tied up. The last re-cover was 3 years ago. The room is very good for league snooker but no teams play out of this venue yet.

The tables are Thurston metric sized tables. These are 2 inches shorter on the length of a full size table and 1 inch shorter on the width. The metric sized tables never really took off as the other Billiard firms who were on the Snooker and Billiards Trade Association voted not to go ahead with the change over to metric tables. Thurston jumped the gun back then and produced a few. I have come across around five of these tables on my rounds.

Photos 2 and 3: The table with badly worn out cloth.

Another couple of photo,s from the 2nd recover I did at this location.
Note the very bad chalk dust build up , and at the point where the ball strikes the end cushion , you get compacted slate dust , when a ball strikes a cushion there is equal down force as impact , therefore crushing chalk dust and compacting into lumps , this can also make the ball jump off the cushion , now some of you players out there may have blamed the table being out of level , when a ball rolling down the lenth of this end cushion , the ball rolls off the compacted dust , well now you can see what the fitter reveals when taking a bed cloth off the slate bed . note that this tables bed cloth was last taken off 3 years ago , so there is 3 years of chalk dust here , and thats another reason why you should have youre bed cloths restretched at least once in their life time or yearly , unless you have the tables recovered every year .

the two Metric 12 foot tables after being Recovered in 6811 tournament 30z cloth .
Allways check that the 6811 that you have ordered is the top grade 6811 tournament , it has two blue lines embroidered into the side edge of the cloth plus gold embroidered writing , on the reverse it has a transfer and also a cloth roll number , also the words tournament should be on the embroidery and also in the roll black print number and the gold transfer it may also have the word gold tournament on the transfer too printed just under the large 6811.
Club 6811 has two red lines , when getting quotes make sure they do not fit club when you have ordered tournament , a well known trick that makes them an extra £20 per recover , at GCL billiards we only use the top grade and I show you the transfer stamp and roll number before fitting. 6811

Club grade 6811 is only a £20 saving over the top grade tournament , and this is only viable to use if you have say 15 tables to recover , then it becomes £300 saved , but on one or two tables in my opinion it pays to fit the top grade, and thats 6811 tournament. if you just ask a firm for Strachan 6811 and they say nothing about the two grades , then expect them to fit Club 6811 , as it makes them £20 per table extra . I prefer to be upfornt and honest about the grades and give the client the choice , I only use club if it is asked for. and then I give them the £20 reduced rate for that grade. You get what you pay for as they say.

Beware of undercutt priceing , when I quote for 6811 tournament , other firms may undercutt then use 6811 club or even worse 6811 substandard . when you order a recover in 6811 tournament look at the cloth transfer and side Embroidery before they fit it , and stay with them while they fit it to make sure they have not swopped it over as soon as you leave the room …it has been done .
It is ok to use club and substandard as along as the customer knows that it is being used and a lower price given because of this , I rarley get asked for club and never get asked for substandard , but I often get offered substandard cloth for stock but never buy it . substandard can be anything form white flecks to stop start lines in the cloth , there is nothing wrong with it , it just has faults within its weave . and the manufacturer stamps the transfer substandard right across it , if you see a cloth with the transfer looking as though someone has tried to rubb a diagonal print off the face of it , leave well alone , I often come across cloths that some fitters have done this . I have been around too long not to notice these things.

Today I have recovered a very nice light oak Riley Aristocrat. This table is used by many of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire’s top players. The table can only be described as mint condition and is a joy to work on.

STEVE B’s mint Riley Aristocrat in OAK , a very nice table to work on.

After I recoverd the table in 6811 TOURNAMENT cloth by STRACHAN, I received the following text on my phone from the happy owner:

WELL HAPPY. HAD A 64 BREAK IN MY 2ND FRAME!
4TH HIGHEST BREAK EVER

This table will only get better the more it is played on. It was rerubbered last year with Northern rubber and the new cloth will after a while speed up. When a new cloth is fitted to a table it is at it’s slowest as the nap is at full length and the cushions are restricted by tight cloth being just applied to the cushions. When the cushion cloth slackens off, the rubber will be free to rebound the ball at a faster pace. This will take around 2 to 3 weeks of play.

The old cloth had a baulk line marked out in white tippex. Although this looks good as the TV tables have this, it is only for the camera’s to pick up on TV. By using a soft lead black pencil, the baulk line will fade. In 6 months to a year the cloth can be restretched and the old black lead pencil line can be removed with acetone, without the fear of having two white lines, as the tippex is very hard to get off a cloth once it has been put on.

I always recommend the black pencil baulk line over the white tippex pen, but it is down to the customer what they require and I will put on whatever they want.